Napoli Owner De Laurentiis Wants 50-Minute Games and Sin-Bins to Save Football
Aurelio De Laurentiis believes football is on the verge of losing an entire generation of fans. Speaking from his Beverly Hills home on Easter Sunday, the 76-year-old Napoli owner and Italian film producer laid out a controversial vision for transforming the sport.
The outspoken Serie A chairman wants to slash match length to 50 minutes, eliminate yellow and red cards completely, relax offside enforcement, and kick smaller clubs out of Italy's top division. While some proposals sound radical, there's an underlying logic that's hard to dismiss entirely.
Why 50-minute matches might actually make sense
De Laurentiis proposes replacing traditional 45-minute halves with two 25-minute periods of actual playing time—eliminating stoppage time, lengthy VAR reviews, and time-wasting theatrics. "You cannot stay down on the field and play around like an actor," he insists. Fake an injury? You're coming off.
His sin-bin system would completely replace the card system. Minor infractions would send players to the sideline for five minutes, while serious offences would mean 20 minutes out. His reasoning? Current suspensions punish teams in future matches rather than addressing the immediate violation. A player can cynically foul to stop a breakaway knowing the real penalty comes next week. Immediate in-game consequences would fundamentally change decision-making on the pitch.
Regarding offside, he wants to eliminate millimetre-level VAR decisions. Few would disagree—having goals disallowed because of a toenail position satisfies nobody except the defending team.
Whether FIFA or UEFA would ever implement these changes remains highly doubtful. However, the core problem he's identifying—that modern football has become slow, fragmented, and increasingly incompatible with shorter attention spans—is legitimate. Broadcasters are already watching younger demographics tune out.
The Super League vision, smaller clubs, and keeping Conte
De Laurentiis wants Serie A reduced from 20 to 16 teams, with clubs unable to claim at least one million supporters being relegated. "When the team appears on DAZN or Sky, how many people actually watch? 3,000? 4,000?" His reimagined league would permanently feature Juventus, Inter, Milan, Napoli and Roma, with other clubs competing for remaining positions.
It's a harsh perspective on football's structure. Clubs like Sassuolo, built from a town of just 40,000 residents, earned promotion through the same merit-based system that saw Napoli climb back from Serie C. De Laurentiis dismisses the comparison. "Napoli has 100 million supporters—it is different."
Regarding a European Super League, his stance is more sophisticated than the failed 2021 breakaway attempt—which he rejected because it guaranteed spots to specific clubs rather than selecting based on league performance. He envisions a pan-European competition featuring approximately 20-25 clubs from Europe's top five leagues competing throughout an entire season. While details remain unclear, his goal is eliminating meaningless group matches in favour of commercially significant fixtures.
On FIFA president Gianni Infantino's expanded Club World Cup, his position is crystal clear: "You will kill my money. Because I invested in that guy and you are squeezing him just to put money in your pocket."
Regarding Antonio Conte—who just delivered Napoli's fourth Scudetto—De Laurentiis is determined to retain him. He compares Conte's coaching approach to the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket, intended as genuine praise. "When you defend, probably you win. If you just want to attack, probably you lose."
- Conte has one year remaining on his current contract
- Italy's federation presidency is currently vacant, complicating any potential national team opportunity
- De Laurentiis says he needs Conte's decision by April or May to secure a replacement if necessary
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia's January transfer to PSG—which Conte opposed—stripped Napoli of a key player mid-championship campaign. De Laurentiis claims the player's representatives threatened to invoke FIFA's Article 17, which allows players under 28 to terminate contracts after three years for minimal compensation. He's advocating to have that regulation modified. It won't be the final time a club faces this situation.
"The agent is only a vampire who sucks money from everywhere," he states. Then again, De Laurentiis sold Kvaratskhelia in January and still captured the league title. Regardless of the process, the results speak for themselves.